The Peace Movement One Year Later by Mark Englerwww.dissidentvoice.org
March 18, 2004First Published in
Foreign Policy in Focus

One
year after the start of war in Iraq, the peace movement in the United States
faces an unusual predicament. Critics of the invasion had many of their key
arguments vindicated in the past year, as President Bush's case for war has
collapsed. Likewise, activists can take substantial credit for emboldening
Democratic criticisms of the Bush administration and for keeping war-related
scandals in the spotlight. Yet even as we sense that greater space for
progressive activism in the country is opening, it has been hard to maintain
a sense of unity and purpose within the peace movement itself.

On March 20, the one-year
anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, opponents of the war and the
ongoing occupation will stage protests and memorials in countries across the
globe. The actions will recall the massive demonstrations that took place
before the war. However, they will be far smaller than the protests of early
2003.

This set of circumstances
raises two key questions: What has the peace movement accomplished? And
where do we go from here?

Reflection on these two
questions is vital, not because it will magically give the movement a bold
new direction or clear up all confusion among supporters about where peace
activism now stands. Rather, only by standing back can we crystallize the
strains of thinking that are circulating between different activists, and
spark further discussion about strategies for going forward. Therefore, this
paper will consider each of the questions in turn, with the goals of
providing an overview of what has happened so far and of evaluating current
ideas about movement strategy.

I. What Has the Peace
Movement Accomplished?

Last year, the Bush
administration's push for war with Iraq faced a huge wave of international
dissent. This outcry culminated in the coordinated worldwide demonstrations
of February 15, 2003. The mobilization was especially noteworthy because it
drew out massive crowds before an invasion of Iraq had even started. In the
U.S., the largest protests took place in New York and San Francisco, but
significant actions sprang up in many communities across the country that
rarely see sizable demonstrations. Likewise, as part of the "Cities for
Peace" campaign, some 140 U.S. communities passed antiwar resolutions,
including large cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles, as well as
small ones like Telluride, Colorado, Salisbury, Connecticut, and Des Moines,
Iowa.

The pace of organizing
remained strong through the opening week of the war, producing in some
surprisingly militant direct actions immediately after the bombing began.
Actions in San Francisco merit particular attention not only because they
generated a remarkable 2,300 arrests in the first days of war, but also
because they show the difficulty of sustaining momentum after a tremendous
first thrust.

Early in the morning of
March 20, the day after the war began in Iraq, activists descended en masse
on the San Francisco financial district. Protestors tied up the main
thoroughfares and blocked the entrances to major office buildings, acting
"like sand in the gears," as one headline in The San Francisco Chronicle
read. A mock construction crew closed off a highway ramp with orange cones,
road flares, and "Men at Work" signs. After the first day, Alex Fagan, San
Francisco's Assistant Chief of Police, acknowledged the historic proportions
of the actions. " This is the largest number of arrests we've made in one
day and the largest demonstration in terms of disruption that I've seen," he
said. Protests continued in force for another three days.

Given that the city of San
Francisco was generally sympathetic to the anti-war cause, mainstream
critics of the actions argued that protesters were picking poor targets by
bringing the city's "business as usual" to a standstill. In response Andrea
Buffa, spokeswoman for United for Peace and Justice, indicated, "People are
moving on from tying up intersections and preventing ordinary San
Franciscans from getting to work." Instead, organizers focused more
intensively on targeting corporations set to profit from the war. They
staged downtown actions against the Carlyle Group and protests at the
Oakland dockyards against military cargo freighter APL Shipping and postwar
contractor Stevedoring Services of America.

However, these actions did
not translate into a strategy for escalation, and the movement's momentum
slowed in the weeks following the first mass arrests. The shift was
compounded by a dramatic change in mood nationally as the invasion of Iraq
swiftly came to an end and the regime change heralded as a success.

After Regime Change

As Bush proclaimed "Mission
Accomplished," a perception emerged that the movement was a failure because
it had been unable to stop the invasion. Organizers in San Francisco, having
pulled off a remarkable series of actions, will have to evaluate for
themselves whether these tactics proved effective in advancing a local
strategy, given the time and resources they devoted. But there is no doubt
that, in more general terms, the visible, outspoken, and sometimes
disruptive global protests significantly shaped public understanding of the
war.

In the wake of the protests
on February 15, 2004, The New York Times famously labeled "world public
opinion" as the second of "two superpowers on the planet." In several
countries, most notably Spain (where the anti-war left just succeeded in
ousting a pro-war government), forces standing in opposition to the invasion
and occupation of Iraq have significantly altered the balance of power
within their governments. It is possible that international outrage stopped
the administration from fulfilling neoconservative desires to follow up on
the invasion of Iraq with assaults on Syria and Iran .

Domestically, protesters
can also point to specific effects of their actions. Due to strong
expressions of dissent, the war in Iraq was framed as a fiercely disputed
affair. The taint of controversy limited the surge of support that any U.S.
president can expect to receive when commanding troops overseas, and set the
stage for the later scandals that would plague the Bush administration. The
relentless scrutiny and criticism by the peace movement of the faulty case
for invasion would ultimately gain mainstream traction and leave the
president flailing to defend his wartime lies and deceptions.

Peace movement activists
also helped to empower a mainstream Democratic critique of Bush's war. Al
Gore chose a movement vehicle, MoveOn.org, as a platform to launch his stern
critiques of the White House. The same organization was closely associated
with Howard Dean's grassroots fundraising machine. Activists soon found many
of their arguments voiced in the presidential primaries. This came to
fruition most visibly in the Dean campaign, which in turn helped to push the
entire Democratic field in an anti-war direction. Even reluctant critics
like John Kerry realized that a Lieberman-esque stance in defense of war was
simply not going to work in reaching an energized Democratic base.

While peace activists
seemed demoralized by a triumphal Bush administration throughout much of
spring 2003, antiwar sentiment began to rebound by autumn. This resurgence
was due less to an overall critique of imperialism and occupation than to
success in advancing a series of smaller, more concrete points. The
sustained hostilities and attacks on U.S. servicemen in Iraq disproved the
neoconservative vision of an easy reconstruction, suggesting grim and
difficult times ahead. Likewise, increasing U.S. casualties fermented
growing discontent among military families about the war's necessity.

Movement critiques helped
to discredit the popular myth of a link between Hussein and al Qaeda,
disrupting contentions that the Iraq war was an effective way to fight
terrorism. Denunciations of the administration's corporate pandering
appeared especially trenchant following a series of no-bid contracts offered
to well-connected U.S. businesses, as well as after persistent scandals
about Halliburton profiteering. Finally, the administration's misuse of
police powers to target opponents of the war helped to feed a backlash of
civil libertarians calling for the repeal of the Patriot Act.

This winter, after search
teams in Iraq failed to produce weapons of mass destruction, the central
justification of the war collapsed and public support of the invasion
weakened. In this context, critics of the war effort have found many of
their arguments more readily accepted than ever.

II. Where Do We Go From
Here?

All these achievements
deserve recognition. However, none of them amounts to a movement strategy.
Since the end of combat operations, peace activists have struggled to
present a unified message, structured campaign goals, or a plan for
escalating dissent. The call to "Bring the Troops Home Now" is not
universally accepted even amongst those who oppose the U.S. occupation, and
it often muddies the waters by focusing on technical discussion of if and
how the international community should play a greater role in furthering
Iraqi sovereignty. The slogan for the March 20 protests, "The World Still
Says No to War," is not fashioned to provide a new alternative or to convey
a sense of fresh demands.

Some prominent writers have
proposed campaigns that might inaugurate a new phase of the peace movement.
Tariq Ali has proposed an international movement to close some of the 702
U.S. military bases abroad. Arundhati Roy has suggested a targeted campaign
against two selected corporations profiting from Iraq, and the organization
Direct Action to Stop the War has continued its focus on corporate
profiteers. Naomi Klein has argued for a focus on stopping the privatization
of the Iraqi economy.

Each of these proposals
merits consideration, especially on the international level. But in the
U.S., they must be put in the context of the one dominant strategy to which
organizations and activists have actually committed themselves already: The
drive to achieve "regime change at home."

"Beat Bush" and Beyond

In terms of critical mass,
unified message, and clear goals, the push to "Beat Bush" is likely the only
thing on the map of the U.S. peace movement that qualifies as a true
strategy. This is by no means uncontroversial amongst activists, and many
leading peace movement organizations have refrained from explicitly
endorsing an anti-Bush electoral effort. Yet in contrast to four years ago,
when many progressives supported the Nader campaign and felt that a ripe
moment for third party insurgency had arrived, a wide range of
left-of-center citizens are now unrepentantly joining forces to oust the
current administration.

It hardly needs to be
argued that there are many good reasons for this. One worth mentioning is
that since most opponents of U.S. militarism also deplore such evils as the
upward redistribution of wealth via tax cuts, the destruction of the
environment, the denial of civil liberties, the busting of unions, and the
repeal of reproductive freedoms, supporting the Democratic candidate for
president presents itself as a "radical" option since it links these various
harms and allows us to kill several birds with one stone. Or if not to kill
those birds, then at least to clip their wings.

However, a "Beat Bush"
strategy also has its limits. The first, and most obvious, is that John
Kerry's "anti-war" position is barely passable--something he belatedly
adopted after initially voting to authorize an invasion. For better or
worse, the candidate keeps up "presidential" appearances by explicitly
distancing himself from claims that a U.S. "empire" exists. He instead
prefers to talk about Bush administration "mistakes" and "errors of
judgement." The peace movement may have good reason to support Kerry, but we
would be foolish to expect him to voice our views of U.S. policy for us.
Moreover, critics of the "Anybody But Bush" impulse rightly note that an
over-focus on the election could cause considerable frustration for the
movement--not only in the event that Bush wins, and the effort seems all for
naught, but even if Kerry wins and his management of the occupation proves
less than praiseworthy.

Second, just because peace
activists join in a broader Democratic coalition does not mean that we will
recruit more people to our cause, nor necessarily spread a more radical
analysis of global challenges. Of course, these organizational objectives
are not ends in themselves. But they do impact efforts to advance wider
progressive campaigns. While groups like United for Peace and Justice were
able to mobilize large crowds to prewar demonstrations, they have been
markedly less successful in turning out participants to protest related
issues, like domestic budget cuts. Work on globalization issues, which many
activists rightly see as integrally linked with anti-war campaigning, has
slowed as focus has turned to military intervention. Articulating the
connection between these causes is a task that must continue to take place
regardless of the presidential elections.

Third, having a firm goal
for next November still does not substitute for long-term thinking. While
U.S. progressivism at its weakest has avoided electoral politics altogether,
at its best it has put support of candidates in the context of a larger
vision--it has used electoral work as a means to greater ends.

The labor movement provides
one example. The most aggressive segments of organized labor--those waging
forceful campaigns for union representation, respect on the job, just wages,
and immigrant rights--can come to political campaigns as representatives of
an ongoing movement. As such, they can look at electoral drives as one
tactic of many. They can spend less time agonizing that they have subverted
the whole of their politics to a "lesser of evils" opportunism. They can
support candidates wholeheartedly in the short term, and then use electoral
gains to advance their organizing.

Whether or not one happened
to agree with it, the 2000 Nader campaign was also able to articulate a
concrete strategy for its electoral intervention: It aimed to gain 5% of the
popular vote. In doing so it would secure millions of dollars in federal
matching funds for the Green Party in future contests and, supporters
argued, open a real space for progressive third-party politics. The Kucinich
campaign, like Nader's current bid for the presidency, hasn't been able to
express this level of strategic clarity.

One way that peace
activists can think about longer-term strategy is simply by
reconceptualizing specific demands as ongoing campaigns. An effort to "Bring
the Troops Home" can be a multi-stage affair, which includes defeating Bush
as a first step, and then pressuring Kerry on his foreign policy stances and
appointments as an important second step. In this way, we start talking
about what happens after the November elections. Campaigns to close military
bases or target war profiteers could similarly play out both during and
after the election season.

A Unique Role

Concerning the immediate
future, the main institutions of the U.S. peace movement (to the extent that
they have accepted the "Beat Bush" strategy at all) have been well aware of
the need to approach a coalition effort with an agenda of their own. Many
have worked to articulate what such engagement might look like. The
newspaper War Times, while celebrating Bush's poor showing in the polls,
argues for the need "to continue to push our peace demand ourselves--and
push Democrats to follow." Many activists would take from this a plan for
"critical support" of John Kerry. Of course, when it comes to mainstream
presidential candidates, the U.S. left has proven itself better at the
"critical" part of things than at "support." Along similar lines, United for
Peace and Justice's 12-month strategy paper speaks of "shaping the debate."
This is an admirable goal, but probably is too ambitious and diffuse to plan
around effectively.

Looking at what unique
strengths the peace movement brings to a larger "Beat Bush" coalition, a
more specific job emerges for anti-war activists to tackle: Namely, the job
of taking the war away from President Bush as a campaign asset. When the
White House tries to portray its Iraq conquest as a victory for freedom and
justice in the world, peace activists have a clear mandate to challenge the
rosy story line, to expose the lies, and to highlight the true costs of
neoconservatism. Already, we have made considerable strides in this
direction, forcing the administration into what The New York Times describes
as a " slow retreat... a day-by-day, fact-by-fact backing away from
assertions they made with such confidence nine months ago."

Klein, among others, is now
forcefully arguing that the privatization of Iraq's economy will be a vital
front in this effort. As each of the leading justifications for war--first
the weapons of mass destruction, then the links with al Qaeda--has fallen
away, Bush has increasingly been forced to fall back on humanitarian
reasoning. His apologists now frame the war as an effort to promote
democracy. It will be incumbent upon peace activists, drawing on a wider
analysis of global injustices, to raise questions about what version of
"freedom" the White House is actually offering.

After all, what kind of
democracy is the Bush administration promoting when the occupying authority
has already sold away the Iraqi economy--where virtually everything is newly
privatized, where there are no limits on the controlling interests of
foreign corporations, where profits are expatriated, and where pre-arranged
Structural Adjustment programs put handcuffs on national policymakers?
Freedom for a well-connected corps of multinational profiteers and true
self-determination for the Iraqi people are two very distinct things. It's
the job of the peace movement to publicize the difference in a way that can
resonate with a large portion of the American electorate.

A modest start to our
renewed efforts to make the costs of war an election issue will be
participating in protests on March 20. This means joining vigils taking
place throughout the world. Or, better yet, marching with military families
to the White House from the Dover, Delaware Air Force Base, a site where the
media is banned and the Iraq war dead arrive. Pictures of the families, the
marchers, and the mourners are images of dissent that the president would
rather not see in advance of the November elections. But for a movement
rebuilding momentum, they would be only the beginning.

Mark Engler is a writer based in New York City, and a commentator
for Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org),
where this article first appeared. He can be reached via the web site
http://www.DemocracyUprising.com. Reprinted with permission of the
author. Research assistance provided by Jason Rowe.